by Maurice Gee
Silverwing said, ‘There’s another thing. Osro’s army has sent bands of scouts out. One of them is camped on the north side of the lake. Fifteen warriors, men and women. They are Hotlanders, not at home in these forests, and they make no attempt to hide themselves. But when they come round the lake they will find your trail.’
‘We better be gone then,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’d sooner tangle with Bloodcats than them geezers.’
They dowsed their fire and shouldered their packs. The Varg came out of the trees, where they had been hunting, and the band set off down-river. Yellowclaw and Silverwing flew low overhead, keeping a ridge between them and the Hotlander camp. By noon they reached the lake. It was several kilometres wide and vanished round a bend towards the sea. On the southern side the land went sweeping up to the summit of a flat-topped hill which the Birdfolk said ran along to cliffs on the shore. Several ways led down to the sea, and on the rocks the yellow weed grew. Seafolk lived there.
They climbed to the top of the hill and started along. It was as flat as a table, but prickly scrub growing head-high prevented them from seeing lake or sea. Yellowclaw and Silverwing kept to the south, out of sight. Ben broke a trail, crushing bushes flat with his paws.
They came to the plateau rim in mid-afternoon, broke through the scrub, and saw the sea. The sight made them gasp. It was as if someone had flung islands out in a handful. Some were small, no more than smooth-topped rocks standing a metre or two clear of the water. Others, equally low, managed to grow trees or grass and from the cliff-top looked like enamelled shields, or basking monsters growing forest patches on their backs. Five or six large islands lay amongst them, stretching arms. They reached out to the horizon. Channels made a web between, deep blue, almost purple. It would take years, Nick thought, to land on each. But only one of them was Furthermost.
‘There’s more than a bloddy thousand,’ Jimmy said.
‘There’s millions.’
‘The Seafolk will know which one,’ Dawn said.
Nick looked south down the coast. Far away, beyond the haze, was a grey smudge of land. He wondered if it was the cape where the Seafolk had saved Susan from the whirlpool. If so, the swamp lay inland, and Sheercliff and the Temple further in; and the city where Otis Claw had ruled was south again. The cave in the mountain, where he and Susan must travel when he found her, seemed so far away he could not imagine reaching it – and Earth, for a moment, was beyond memory.
‘She’s a big land,’ Jimmy said. ‘She’ll do me.’
‘Not me,’ Nick said. ‘I’m from Earth. I’m going back.’
‘Give ’em my love,’ Jimmy said. ‘Here come the Pollies. I hope they’ve found an easy way down.’
Silverwing and Yellowclaw came beating up from the shoreline. They rode on a current out from the rim and Yellowclaw cried, ‘The Seafolk are waiting. They have a boat. But you must hurry. The Hotlanders saw me as I flew down. See, by the lake, they are coming.’
Nick shaded his eyes. The lake ended in a short river that flowed to the sea. It cut through a yellow beach, and there he saw what seemed to be a coloured centipede. It ran, it ran fast, with legs flickering in the sun. It took him a moment to make out the parts – men and women, red and blue. Their heads and breasts gleamed like an insect’s shell, their long spears bristled like antennae. They came to the river and ran through. Broken water flashed in the sun.
‘Yeah,’ Jimmy said, ‘they got our scent. An’ they’re butchers, every one. Let’s make ourselves scarce.’
Silverwing guided them, while Yellowclaw flew down to keep watch on the Hotlanders. She took them along the rim and down the sweep of land to cliffs rising sheer from the sea. There she led them to a giant landslip, where the bears found a path through boulders to a stony beach held in the curve of two reefs. Beyond the narrow opening islands lay. A boat was nosed on the shingle and the heads of Seafolk showed on the waterline like a string of buoys.
‘Get aboard, they’re coming,’ Silverwing cried. Nick looked up to the top of the slip and saw the Hotlanders. Their speed seemed impossible. Their long thin legs, their fleshless arms, jointed in a way that seemed unhuman, terrified him. Yellowclaw was overhead, loosing arrows. Silverwing flew to help. They kept out of spear range and sent down a stream of arrows, trying to slow the Hotlanders, but it barely made them pause. They carried small oval shields buckled on their forearms and with these warded off the arrows. Their speed of limb and eye seemed unnatural. Savage, primitive; yet to Nick they seemed like something from the future – humans mass-produced by a machine. Their shaven skulls gleamed like plastic bowls.
‘In,’ Jimmy yelled. He picked Nick up and hurled him into the boat. Soona and Dawn were already in, and Jimmy vaulted up like a boy and turned to face the land with his axe. The boat was wide and flat, with a low deck-house. It was more barge than yacht and its heaviness held it on the stones. The Seafolk strained along the sides but it moved only an inch or two. Then the Varg, Bess and Ben, added their strength. They put their paws on the bow and heaved and the barge grated out and floated free. They plunged into the water, keeping it going, and together, Seafolk and Varg, they drove the heavy craft at the gap in the reef.
The Hotlanders were almost at the beach. One huge man – he must, Nick thought, be two metres tall – jumped on a boulder and hurled his spear. It came on a flat trajectory and hissed into the sea a boat length short. His shout of anger came as shrill as a gull’s cry. No one else threw. They ran. They burst on to the beach and made no pause, but were in the black rocks of the reef. One fell with an arrow in his leg. They were not pausing to ward off arrows now.
‘Inside,’ Jimmy yelled. ‘They’re gunner be in range.’ He pushed Soona and Dawn into the deck-house. Nick followed and Jimmy came in last. ‘Keep down from that winder. Yer’ll get skewered.’ He pushed Nick down. They heard the hissing again, and the thud of spears striking the barge at the waterline. The Hotlanders were attacking the Seafolk. The barge lurched and halted, then moved more heavily.
‘The Seafolk have gone round the other side. Ben and Bess too,’ Dawn said. She and Jimmy were getting messages. Nick felt pressure on the keel. It must be hard keeping the barge straight, but he knew the Varg would get them through. The Hotlanders would come up though almost to point-blank range. He crouched as low as he could, close to the wall. Dawn and Soona lay beside him and Jimmy was on the other side of the window, near the door. Now and then he risked a glance out the window.
‘Gettin’ close. But we’re gunner make it.’ A spear hissed by his face and struck the wall. ‘O.K. Keep down. It’s us they’re pottin’.’ Spears struck the deck-house. Several pierced the wood and jutted like nails into the room. Others, in a flight – five, seven – came through the window and stood trembling in the wall and floor. Long spears, iron tipped, with shafts that seemed to hum, and spiky feathers tied below the head.
‘Use up yer ammo,’ Jimmy said. But each warrior had four or five spears. The attack went on, the spears in the room stood as thick as hair and the window was framed in shining points. At last it stopped. A cry came from above the boat. ‘No more spears,’ – Yellowclaw, Jimmy and Nick looked out the window. The reef was only ten metres away, with Hotlanders crowded by the water. The barge had passed the closest point. They had missed their chance to jump for it.
‘What are they doing?’
‘Dunno,’ Jimmy said. He went outside and the others followed. The Hotlanders broke into two groups. A man uncoiled a rope and ran it between them. It was as if they meant to have a tug of war. But they lowered the rope until it touched the ground. Now they seemed about to spin it for skipping. But Jimmy yelled, ‘They’re gunner chuck ’im at us.’ A Hotlander crouched further back – one smaller than the others, just a boy. He began to run. Yellowclaw and Silverwing had seen the danger too. They let fly arrows at him, but his start was too swift. The arrows struck the reef and bounced away. The boy was at the rope, his foot was on it, and he leaped. At the same time the warriors heaved and
the rope jerked tight with such force it snapped in two. The timing for a feat like that was so fine Nick could not believe it – yet the boy was thrown twenty metres. He made a red flash in the air, and with arms stretched out came down at the barge like a dragon-fly. His fingers found the rail and locked on it, his legs splashed in the sea. For a moment he trailed, then hauled himself up. He was coiled like a spring at the rail, and he reached for the knife clamped in his teeth.
The Varg had swum to the rear of the boat and they lunged at him. From overhead, Yellowclaw and Silverwing shot arrows. Just for a moment their target was still. One took the boy in the shoulder, the other struck him above the hip. The shock made him cry out and his knife fell into the sea. For a second or two he clung to the rail with one hand. Then he let go and splashed into the water, staining it red. The Varg plunged forward, but Seafolk lifted the Hotlander clear and made a raft of bodies under him. One, lifting her head, croaked in her painful voice, ‘We do not kill. It is not our way. We will return him to his people.’
‘If yer do he’s a goner,’ Jimmy said. ‘They sent ’im ter take out some of us and he ballsed it up. They’ll chop ’im in little pieces.’
‘Bring him here,’ Soona said. ‘We won’t hurt him.’
‘He is dying,’ Dawn said. ‘I must treat his wounds.’
The Seafolk brought the boy to the side of the boat and lifted him, standing like dolphins on their tails. Nick and Jimmy grabbed him and pulled him on board. The boy was conscious. He twisted and flapped like a fish and would have got free, but Ben climbed on to the barge and held him down with a paw on his chest. Dawn knelt beside him. She looked at his wounds, which leaked blood on the deck, and said, ‘Nick, my pack. I must make him sleep. Then I must close these wounds or he will have no blood left.’ The boy’s eyes, glazing over, still had life to look at her. No trace of fear showed. His lips snarled and he made a feeble bite at her hand. ‘Nick.’ He ran into the deck-house. Soona came and looked over Dawn’s shoulder.
‘He’s so young.’
Her voice convulsed the boy. It was as if she had splashed scalding liquid on him. His eyes jerked to her face, widened as though from a blinding pain, and his mouth screamed. An eruption of strength ran through his body, jerking him from under Ben’s paw. His wounds were nothing. He was on his feet as quick as a cat, before the bear could move, and he tore the arrow from the wound on his hip, and holding it like a dagger sprang at Soona. Dawn was quickest. She caught the boy’s arm and hung on it, and was dragged along. She slowed his thrust so that Soona was able to twist and the arrow pierced her robe. Then Jimmy was there, with a bellow, and Nick, coming from the deck-house, and Ben too, and they wrestled and beat the boy down. Finally they had him on the deck. It was like trying to hold a greased wrestler, Nick thought. He lay on the arm that held the arrow, putting all his weight on, but it twisted like an eel, and it took all his strength to hold it down. ‘Kill,’ screamed the boy, his eyes on Soona, ‘enemy, kill.’ Ben held him with claws unsheathed and Jimmy lay on his legs. ‘Soona, my bag,’ Dawn cried. ‘The bottle. Quick.’ Soona thrust it into her hand and Dawn poured liquid in her palm and cupped it on the boy’s nose. He gasped. He sighed. He slept. But still his teeth were bared and spasms of rage and ferocity twitched the muscles in his cheeks.
‘You can let him go.’
Cautiously they freed him and stood up. The boy lay sleeping, twitching, while Dawn worked on his shoulder and hip. She poured a sweet-smelling oil in the wounds, then smeared on a pungent cream. The blood stopped oozing. Next she sprinkled black and white powder on them. It’s a recipe, Nick thought sourly. There’s the pepper and salt. He wasn’t very fond of this Hotlander. He’d done his best to kill them and now they were busy saving his life. His thinness and hairlessness seemed unhuman, and his colour, his red skin, was like a disease. It was the red of strawberries, and though Nick knew it was paint, he shivered. On the boy’s chest a bright blue lightning bolt was tattooed.
‘Means he’s a man,’ Jimmy said. ‘They got some ceremony where they hold ’em down and cut it in with bits of glass. Hurts like hell. Poor little sod.’
‘He’s not so little. If this is Osro’s army the Freemen have got no chance.’
‘It ain’t gunner be that sort of war.’
‘No,’ Nick said. He looked at the blue lightning on the boy’s chest. The Weapon, Osro’s Weapon, Kenno’s Weapon, meant that warriors – swords, spears, arrows – were out-of-date. He left Dawn working and Jimmy keeping guard and turned to the land. On the reef the Hotlanders stood in a circle. Even at a distance of several hundred metres they were threatening. They swayed in unison, a ritual of some kind, some working out of rage or frustration. They seemed like a giant sea anemone, waiting for prey. Further off, at the cliff, Yellowclaw was retrieving arrows while Silverwing kept watch. Ben, trusting Dawn’s sleeping potion, had slipped back into the sea and was chasing fish with Bess. The Varg were always hungry. Along the sides of the barge the Seafolk laboured. Others swam further off, waiting their turn. Already the nearest island was sliding by. Nick hoped that when Dawn had finished her doctoring they could stop and put the boy on an island, let him fend for himself. He was dangerous. Nick knew he would never forget the savagery – the Bloodcat savagery – with which he had gone for Soona.
He looked around for her, looked in the deck-house. She was not there. Then he heard her soft flute music from the front of the barge. It seemed to tremble – it was more than sad, it was afraid. He listened for a moment, then started forward. The bristling spears stopped him on one side, so he took the other. He found her sitting with her back to the deck-house. The flute notes were single and did not touch each other. Each seemed unbearably sad, and caught in each was that trembling fear. He sat down by her side and waited till she put her flute in her lap. She was the strangest girl he had ever known – stranger than Susan, and she was hard enough to understand. But Soona, with her darkness, her still face, her deep eyes, seemed to have some secret that could not be shared, something from the air and soil and stone and mountains of O. She was, he thought, as strange as Chinese must have been to the first men from the west, as strange as Tibetans.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. How is the boy?’
‘He’ll survive. We’ll put him ashore on an island.’
‘No, no.’ Her vehemence startled him. She caught his wrist with fingers hard and strong – she was a fishergirl and had spent her life weaving nets. ‘We must keep him. Keep him with us.’
‘I don’t see why. We’ll have to guard him.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Nick, you must let me decide. There is a knowledge I carry. Do not ask. I carry it but don’t know what it means. Susan will tell me. And tell you.’
‘Sure,’ Nick said. He did not like this – especially he did not want the Hotlander boy on the barge. He would never trust him. He had felt that arm jumping in its passion to kill. ‘Why does he hate you? Why did he go at you like that?’
Soona relaxed, but kept her hand on his arm. She seemed to need the comfort of touching him. ‘He carries knowledge too. It must be that. He does not know it – less than I. But he recognized me. He saw me and knew. And tried to kill me.’
‘Why?’
‘I am an enemy. I will do something terrible to him. And he to me. And both of us to all Humankind. He tried to kill me to save himself.’
‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’ She looked at him and smiled. Suddenly she leaned forward and kissed him. ‘I like you, Nick. And I like Jimmy Jaspers. And I love Susan. But above all I love O.’
‘Still doesn’t make much sense,’ he mumbled. He felt himself blushing, but wished that she would kiss him again. She let his hand go.
‘Listen, Nick. There’s an old song that’s come back to me. I used to sing it in Stonehaven as I mended nets. I learned it from my mother and she from hers. No one knew how old it was or who made the words.’ She played a few notes on her flute. Then
she sang:
‘One is red and one is white
And they must go together.
Hand in hand with one who knows
They must go together.
In the night and in the dawn,
Fierce is one and gentle one,
In the dying and the birthing
They must go together.’
‘Yes,’ Nick said, ‘I see.’
‘Do you?’
‘I’m not dumb. You’re white. He’s red. You’re gentle and he’s fierce. I don’t get the rest of it. Is Susan supposed to be the one who knows?’ He was jealous that they must go hand in hand. ‘And what’s all this about night and dawn? And dying and birthing?’
‘I don’t know. It’s only an old song.’
‘You don’t believe that.’
‘All I know is, the Hotlander – the red one – recognized me. We’re strangers, but he knew, something spoke in him. It spoke in me. What the rest is we’ll learn in Furthermost.’
‘If we find it.’
The first island was astern. Others lay on the left and right, and stretched ahead as far as Nick could see. He got up and went to the rail. ‘Seafolk,’ he called, ‘do you know where Furthermost is?’
One of the seals, swimming with his head above the water, croaked in answer, ‘We know.’
‘Is Susan there?’
‘She is there. And her friend, Thief.’
‘Thief? Who’s he?’ But the seal was gone.
‘Too many questions, Nick,’ Soona said. ‘We’ll know in good time.’ She raised her flute and played a happier tune. He listened a while, then turned to leave.
‘Nick,’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘Guard him when he wakes. He will try to kill me.’
‘We’ll guard him.’
‘Guard me too. If I grow afraid I will kill him.’
He went back to the stern. Jimmy and Dawn had shifted the Hotlander into the deck-house. He lay covered to his chin, with his head on a pillow of blankets. His cheeks had stopped twitching. He seemed no more than a boy in face-paint. If he scrubbed it off and let his hair grow he would be just a skinny kid.